I totally and completely biffed on the 20 year anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake which occurred on October 17, 1989. On that day, I was sitting in front of the TV in my dorm apartment watching the World Series between Bay Area teams the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants (battle of the bay baby!) when it hit at 5:04.
And although I was born in California, I had never lived in state, so this was my first experience with earthquakes – a doozy. I had lived in tornado country, but you can see those things coming!
For the next hours and days I was glued to the TV watching the coverage in horror – the damage to the bridge, the Bay Bridge, that still haunts me every day, the collapse of the Cypress overpass on one of the core freeways near Oakland, the fires in the Marina district in San Francisco and the destruction in Santa Cruz and Watsonville. It was just devastating.
At first, after the earthquake, everyone was getting prepared for the next. Earthquake kits, earthquake drills, etc. But now, after 20 years, things have lapsed again. I did not even remember the marking of the anniversary (I was in Vegas at SITScation). It was only with the recent accident on the bridge again that I was looking online for news of the bridge re-opening that I ran across all the anniversary stories and photos.
The weekend after that earthquake there was an earthquake relief concert held at the Cow Palace south of San Francisco. One of my roommates and I decided to go to lend support and because Eddie Money was singing and I really liked him a lot. I don’t actually recall how or why or even when I started liking him, I just remember that I was excited to go to see him in particular with the hopes that he would sing my favorite song of his, Two Tickets To Paradise.
I went to the concert. It was great. Saw Eddie, Niel Young, Crosby Stills & Nash as well as many others. Was on a total (natural) high coming out of the concert. Only problem was when I arrived back to my car it had been broken into. I was too broke to afford the parking fee at the Cow Palace so I parked in a surrounding neighborhood. If you know anything about the Cow Palace you will know the surrounding neighborhood is not cool. That was my first lesson as a totally naive non-California native. I had a ton of stuff in my car. All gone.
So now when I think of that earthquake I think of that song and also the very expensive lesson I learned that day.
How about you? Got a natural disaster related song? Or a song associated to a single bad event that happened to you?
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